Flight centre on track for record pre-tax profit

Travel agent
Flight Centre
says it is on track to achieve a record full-year pre-tax profit of $220 million to $240 million as trading in most markets are performing well.

The company said that reflected a 10 to 20 per cent improvement on the previous year and guidance had not been materially affected by recent natural disasters.

In Australia, reasonably priced airfares and the strong Australian dollar had ensured international leisure travel remained strong and corporate travel was still performing well above last year, the Brisbane-based company said in a presentation on Wednesday.

In the UK, the company’s leisure and corporate divisions were performing better than the UK market, and the company’s New Zealand business was generating good profits.

In the US, solid profits had been achieved in March, but the company needed a solid fourth quarter to meet expectations on earnings before interest and tax.

Flight Centre’s operations in South Africa, Canada, India and Asia were performing well, the company said.